


Requited Betrayal

by Serenity59



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Depressed Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Fluff, Guilt, Heavy Angst, Past Character Death, Post-Betrayal, Regret, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:02:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26990359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serenity59/pseuds/Serenity59
Summary: A short one shot of a conversation between Joe and Booker in which Joe is crushed by a sudden realization. Booker wasn't the only one who betrayed the people he loved. The truth is hard to swallow, and it hits Joe like a ton of bricks all at once. What drove Booker to the edge where he thought Merrick was his only option? What had let him get to this point? Joe realizes that he'd been pouring water on a drowning man for 200 years.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani
Comments: 6
Kudos: 85





	Requited Betrayal

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoy! This is the conversation that should have happened but didn't. Send me prompts on tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/tenaciouspeacesandwich !

“I thought it would make things right, I thought it would be different... but I was wrong.” Booker said bitterly, “The only thing that’s changed is that I’ve hurt you. I know it must’ve taken a lot on you to tolerate me all these years, and it may not mean much, but I want you to know it mattered to me.”

Joe’s steely gaze faltered for a moment and he frowned in confusion, eyebrows knitting together. “What do you mean, it mattered? What are you talking about?” 

Booker huffed a small breath at that as if he was expecting Joe to know something blatantly obvious. “For trying to love me,” Booker said so matter of factly, “for making the effort to make me feel like I was part of your family. I... I know it must have been hard to take on someone so new, especially someone as screwed up as I am. I’m glad you have Nile now, though... she’s hard not to love.”

Joe was silent, the words unable to form or leave his mouth as he stood there in horror, facing Booker’s reality for the first time. This terrible, twisted mindset of how they perceived him couldn’t have possibly been his brother’s reality all these years, could it? No, of course not, they would’ve noticed... wouldn’t they? 

“Anyway,” Booker murmured, “I just wanted you to know that it means a lot to me that you lasted this long. I thought you’d of run out of tolerance years ago, but you gave me more time than I ever thought you would. Thank you for letting me be with the family.”

“... Be with the family?” Joe finally squeaked, voice terribly unsteady, “Booker, you’re part of the family.”

Booker gave him a horrible resigned smile, one so full of sadness that it hurt Joe to look at. “You don’t have to keep trying, Yusuf, it’s ok. I never let myself fall too deeply into it, alright? I always knew this day would come. Granted, never like this... but I was never really part of the family. And even if I was, I’m certainly not anymore.” He said with such remorse and sorrow that Joe felt physically ill. 

“What...” Joe sputtered, “what makes you think you... weren’t part of our family? Y-you think I never loved you at all?”

Booker smiled sadly, a hint of confusion mixed with his gaze. “I know you wanted to, and I know you tried to. But I also know I’m near impossible to be around. I don’t blame you, Yusuf, I’m just glad you never tried to change me. I’ve never been the same since I lost Marie, and you never tried to change that. You never pitied me or tried to give me the dumb illusion that everything would be alright again. You were honest with me.” 

Joe felt his stomach constrict when he finally wrapped his mind around what Booker was saying. They never tried to change him. They never tried to  _ help _ him, that was the truth. They had all simply come to accept that Booker was always miserable and stopped trying to change that. They had given up on him. Almost a year into him joining the fold, they’d all stopped trying to get booker out of his alcoholic haze because nothing they'd tried thus far had worked. So instead of finding another way, instead of relentlessly trying to pull him towards the surface as they would have for each other, they’d let him go. It hit Joe like a tidal wave, the breath nearly leaving him completely. They’d given up on him. Joe had given up on him. He’d let him continue to fall down a dark hole for 200 years, so much so that Booker thought the  _ only _ way out was by the awful extremities he’d gone to? Like Quynh, Booker had been drowning all of this time. But unlike Quynh, no one was looking for him. Joe had done nothing to stop the ultimate spiral of the one person in their group who had needed them the most. Booker was  _ drowning.  _ And none of them even noticed.

“Joe?” Bookers voice brought him back to reality, and he saw that the man was staring at him in concern. “Joe, are you alright? You look really pale.”

Joe opened his mouth to speak at first, but no words came out. He simply stared at Booker with horror, seeing now for the first time how convinced the man was that nobody really cared about him. That he deserved eternal misery, that he could disappear and no one would miss him. And then, like chalk being washed away by rain, all of Joe’s anger towards the man for his betrayal began to dissolve. Because how could Joe so righteously condemn him for betraying them, when they had done the same thing to him? Joe had betrayed him by letting him down. If anything, what they’d done to Booker was almost  _ worse.  _ Their bodies would always heal, no matter how much pain was involved. But their spirits, their hearts, were no less fragile than any other man. And they’d shattered Bookers. 

“Book…” Joe breathed, “I’m so sorry.”

Booker stared at him like he’d grown a second head, and that confused look only twisted the knife deeper in Joe’s chest. “Sorry?” He repeated, puzzled, “Why are you sorry? I’m the one who-”

But he was immediately cut off by Joe embracing him roughly, frozen in shock. 

“ _ I  _ betrayed  _ you,  _ too.” Joe choked, the very admission tearing him apart inside, “We left you like this.  _ I  _ left you like this. I saw that you were still suffering but I stopped trying to help you. I betrayed you, Sebastien, and I’m so sorry.”


End file.
